Of Gods and Central Planners

So an interesting thought occurred to me as I slurp my morning cuppa, perusing Governor Rick Perry's website as I always do on Sunday mornings.  In the top banner there're blurbs of inspiration and facial likeness splashing across the screen, memorable quotes and so forth.  He keeps them simple:  "Don't spend all the money.  Keep taxes low.  Make regulations fair and predictable.  And stop the frivolous lawsuits that paralyze job creators."  "Getting America back to work starts with laying off our current president."

But the one that really made me sit up and smile this morning went along the lines of:

"It is up to this generation of Americans to take our future back from the grips of central planners who would control our healthcare, spend our treasure, downgrade our future, and micromanage our lives."

It strikes me that there's a wealth of information to be gleaned from this statement.  At first glance I'm scoffing at a man painfully out of touch with 'this generation,' though perhaps the Texan Young Republicans aren't such a hep set themselves...  Perry's use of terms like "central planners" and "treasure" seem taken straight out of McCarthy's* red scare lexicon and biblical parables, respectively.

Even in prayer, the governor has his eye on the presidency.

Particularly though, there's a glowing ire emanating from the statement's tone, a prickling of ego that at first glance seems out of place from such an outspokenly god-fearing man.  'How dare anyone control me,' all the while publicly (and arguably unconstitutionally) throwing himself and the fate of his constituents "in[to] God's hands,**" prayer circles and all.

It's a paradox, the god-and-caesar power shenanigans people play at; on the one hand professing to be in the wholesale throes of the whim of an omnipotently fearsome thing, yet all up in arms that a mere bureaucrat would dare to control what is rightfully God's sort-of-like.

Y'all get the picture, even if I don't really feel the need to paint out every last stroke.  At length I'd contend it's indicative of another political sociopath at work, a potentially opportunistic millionaire shamelessly shirking our social responsibilities while shielding himself and the poor feebs who vote for him by vague obligations to an at most distant superauthority.

A superauthority who clearly hates Texas, heart seemingly still unhardened by Perry's impressive prayer gathering earlier this month.

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* On a side rant, fuck the Cold War; our pyrrhic victory forever besmirched the idea of a national health care program. 

** For all my online scouring, I couldn’t find an actual link to cite.  It’s ‘common knowledge,’ apparently.